Published: August 28, 2008 01:59 am            

Drug dealer: Shooting not over money

Jenkins denies direct responsibility for murder on Memorial Day 2007

FAIRMONT — A self-described drug dealer in Fairmont denied Wednesday that the alleged shooter in the murder of another drug dealer last year owed him between $2,000 and $2,200 for drugs.

While he knew “where things were going” and while he supplied the gun used in the murder, Lafayette Y. “Goldy” Jenkins Jr., 25, of Fairmont, also denied direct responsibility for the fatal shooting of Derrick D. “Lil D” Osborne.

Osborne, 22, was fatally shot three times near midnight on Memorial Day 2007. Osborne collapsed and died in the backyard of a Highland Avenue home as he ran away from the shooter.

Donnell D. Lee, 24, a close friend of Jenkins, is being tried before Marion Chief Judge David R. Janes on first-degree murder and conspiracy charges.

Marion Prosecutor Patrick N. Wilson said Wednesday the state may rest its case-in-chief today. A jury of seven women and five men is hearing the evidence.

Jenkins was the second of four defendants who have pleaded guilty to lesser charges in Osborne’s murder to testify.

His version of events leading up to the attack on Osborne contradict that of co-defendant Stephen H. Podolsky in several key respects. In denying that Taylor did the shooting to erase a drug debt owed to him, Jenkins also denied that Taylor and Podolsky reported back to him several hours after the killing was committed.

Podolsky, the first of the defendants to reach a plea deal, testified Tuesday that Lincoln S. Taylor, the alleged shooter in the case, owed Jenkins between $2,000 and $2,200. Taylor’s trial on first-degree murder and conspiracy charges is set for next month.

Taylor vacillated over whether to kill Osborne to erase the debt but finally decided to commit the crime, Podolsky told the jury. He and Taylor, both Randolph County natives, have been friends since the first or second grade, he said. Taylor came up with an idea to make money by buying drugs from Jenkins for resale in Randolph County and Podolsky said he went along with the scheme.

Jenkins and Lee were growing increasingly concerned over threats they said they were getting from Osborne, Podolsky testified.

Both men talked to Taylor about killing “Lil D,” he said.

Lee showed Taylor and him in a “drive-by” where Osborne was staying with a girlfriend on Highland Avenue. Lee also described Osborne’s looks and told them that Osborne would be driving his girlfriend’s car — a Saturn.

Jenkins said the “beef” between him and Lee on one hand, and Osborne on the other, had its roots in an argument between Lee and Osborne over their girlfriends.

Lee had introduced Osborne to one of his ex-girlfriends when Osborne came to Fairmont from Columbia, S.C., in late 2006 or early 2007, Jenkins said.

Osborne and Lee’s old girlfriend started living together in her Highland Avenue apartment.

But in the early spring of last year, Osborne went back to South Carolina for a week or two to see his family, Jenkins said.

While he was there, he called Lee and asked him for about $200. Osborne needed the money for one of his girlfriends in South Carolina.

Lee got upset and refused to give Osborne the money. The two argued and later, Lee let it “slip” to his ex-girlfriend that Osborne had another girlfriend in South Carolina, Jenkins said.

“That initiated the whole thing,” Jenkins said. “It became like a little high school situation,” with rumors flying on the street among friends and acquaintances in both Lee’s and Osborne’s camps.

What started as an argument over women grew into an exchange of threats, he said.

Jenkins said he had been selling drugs in his native Washington, D.C., since he was 15. He came to Fairmont in 2003 because a cousin was going to Fairmont State University. Jenkins started an urban hip-hop clothing store in Morgantown but the business failed. He started selling music CDs and clothes out of the trunk of his car and in 2005, he started selling drugs to college students in Fairmont and Morgantown.

Jenkins and Lee were close friends. Jenkins sold drugs to Lee, who then sold them to his customers, Jenkins said.

They were friendly when Osborne came to Fairmont. While Osborne was also selling drugs, Jenkins said he never considered Osborne a threat to his business.

In early May, several weeks before the slaying, Jenkins pulled into a convenience store to buy some gasoline. Lee went into the store while Jenkins pumped the gas.

Osborne drove up to Jenkins at the pump, close enough, Jenkins said, that he could see a gun lying on Osborne’s lap.

Both men acknowledged they had heard about the threats to do each other harm, but both assured each other they themselves were not spreading the threats.

Jenkins said Osborne finally said to him, “I’m going to keep your name out of my mouth and you’re going to keep my name out of your mouth.”

Both agreed to the pact. But when Osborne drove off after the tense summit and Lee came out of the store, Jenkins said he was upset.

“I let him know that his problem (with Osborne) was coming my way,” and that he, Jenkins, didn’t like it, and that he wanted Lee to solve the problem.

“I didn’t want to get jammed up or shot up for a situation that really had nothing to do with me,” Jenkins said.

He ridiculed the idea that he would let somebody like Taylor who was not in his inner circle run up a $2,000 to $2,200 debt. Jenkins said he thought Taylor might have agreed to shoot Osborne to prove “he was a tough guy.”

But Osborne’s threats were Lee’s problem, Jenkins said.

He told Lee, “You were the one hanging with him when he came to town; you were the one befriending him,” Jenkins said.

Osborne already had the reputation on the streets of Fairmont of being a shooter, somebody unafraid to use his gun.

E-mail Bill Byrd at bbyrd@timeswv.com.

        

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